Slashdot Mirror
Europe Continues Work on Cybercrime Treaty
Tosta Dojen writes: "I haven't seen this posted yet, but the Council of Europe is proposing a ban on Internet 'Hate Speech'. Fortunately it looks like some intelligent comments are already being made." This is a continuation of the Cybercrime treaty, which we've mentioned before. Wired had a story about this a few days ago.
I dispute that contention. While (p(x) = "x commits hate crimes") implies (q(x) = "x is racist/whatever"), the converse does not hold. Judging by the amount of racist material that gets posted here on Slashdot and Usenet, especially if you browse at -1, I would expect there to be a lot more racist crime in this world than there is.
I was going to post anonymously, but I said, fuck it, the most karma i can lose is 2 points. So here goes:
Prevalent on Slashdot is the notion that Europe is somehow superior to the US. I hate to make such a generalization, but it's not true, and things like this lend some creedence to this.
I am a citizen of the United States, so perhaps this post is a manifestation of a major difference between the European point-of-view/thought process and the American, but I cannot see how this is can posibly be a good thing.
There are multiple issues I take with this law:
1. Who decides what is hate speech? An argument made by a Palestinian against Jewish occupation, etc. could be easily mis-construed as being anti-semetic. Where's the council, the ruling body? What is defined as "hate speech?" Where's the rubric?
2: Who are you to decide what I can and can't view and decide upon for myself? What if I want to be offended? What if I'm a researcher for the NAACP trying to tear down the argument made by the KKK or some other racist organisation?
3. Shouldn't I be the one to ultimately decide what is hate speech? Laws like this don't just stifle free speech, they stifle my ability to be informed and my ability to make my own decision.
4. Laws like this also stifle personal responsibility. It's like the liberal argument to gun control. If somebody shoots somebody, go after the gun manufacturer. If people cannot control their violent nature and attack/kill somebody after they read something on a website, there's a far greater problem than the proliferation of "hate speech."
5. Allowing laws like this to come into play open's Pandora's box of similar regulations. What's next? Subversive/anti-government speech will be made illegal?
Voltaire said it best: "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
Wasn't it Voltaire who said, "I may not believe in what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to do so?" (Or something along those lines)
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Although almost all of Western Europe has now been a democracy for at least 60 years, with constitutional provisions for the freedom of speech in all democracies (except the UK where the European Treaty on Human Rights serves this purpose), there are strict laws against 'inciting race hatred', which limit free speech w.r.t. open racism etc.
Although the European countries and their laws and practices are quite diverse, there seem to be two main arguments which have lead to the introduction of these laws. The first is practical: Europeans have experience with regimes based on bringing this kind of speech in practice; World War II is still very much a defining moment in the collective history of Europeans. Most democracies were either founded just after the war, or have been re-established with new constitutions after 1945. In this way, anti-nazism and anti-fascism has been one of the primary foundations by which the democratic ideals were established and affirmed. The idea was: never again should a democracy change into a racist totalitarian state, and it's worthwhile to give up that bit of freedom to prevent this from happening again.
The other argument is more philosophical: there seems to be a difference in the basis for the fundamental freedoms and rights between the US and Europe. In the US, these freedoms and rights are seen as 'god-given' (or 'self-evident'), and are seen primarily as a way to protect the citizen against the state. In Europe, the basis for the democratic system with its freedoms is the notion of the right to live in 'human dignity'. This implies that the citizen should not just be protected from the state, but also from people and corporations who try to infringe on 'human dignity'. In this sense, 'inciting race hatred' is seen as more threatening to minorities' right to dignity than the person uttering those 'threats' (remember that Europe has witnessed 'incitement' changing to actual genocide).
You may or may not agree with these laws, but in Europe there seems to be a broad majority in favor of these laws, mainly because of WWII.
I hope my point is still clear in this long rant :-)
Sander
The short of the matter is Xenophobia is a natural part of us. It's rational thought that allows us as a society to look past it.
I can't disagree with you more. Xenophobia is not natural. People learn it. In speech. In behavior. It's a cultural thing.
I know a kid, 5 years old. His parents are white, so so is he. They just moved to a new neighbourhood. The old neighbourhood was mostly white, so at school, his class was also mostly white. The new neighbourhood is multicultural, so at school, the class is also multicultural. With multicultural I mean people from all continents. It simply works that way when you're 6 years old and your parents are looking for a school nearby.
Now if xenophobia is a natural part of us, please explain to me why this 5 year old kid had new friends both at school in his new neighbourhood almost instantly. His parents were still moving in, while he already played with his new friends.
Xenophobia has been part of our culture for a long long time. Imagine you're one of our ancient forefathers, long ago. Those were rough times. If you messed up, you could be thrown out of the tribe. You were either friend or enemy.
Black and white thinking like that leads to all kinds of strange behavior. Xenophobia is one of them. There's a lot of grey between the black and white, folks! In today's society, it's okay to be friendly to people you don't know! You have the best chance of getting a friendly reaction when *you* act friendly. By being friendly, you *make* people friendly.
If you say that xenophobia is a natural part of us, you deny that you are responsible for your thinking, your opinion, your behavior *and* your mood!
The problem is, that people will actually listen to what those racists say. We had that here in Germany, remember? The people who post racist stuff on the internet may not be the ones committing the crime, but they will make others do it!
And consider this: You might be into free speech, so are we all! But racists, facists and the like don't give shit about it. You might want to fight with fair weapons and defend everyone's rights! But they don't!
So how should we solve this mess?
[--- PGP key and more on http://www.root42.de ---]
Why do you think judges are completly stupid? There is a huge difference between the occasionnal racist, and the one holding a whole library of nazi books, involved in fights against foreigners, in burning asylum seeker houses, shouting publically "you <...censored...>" etc... and even more so, neo-nazi political parties in Europe willing to publish officially there nazi propaganda and revisionnism on the WWW. It's seems that some Americans have absolutly no sense of subtleties, nuances or shades. You're comparing Slashdot material to actual neonazi stuff makes me wonder if you have even the slightest remote idea of what is said in some places. As for it not being dangerous, remember Nazi/Hitler were democratically elected, such is the power of *propaganda*.